


On Death and Dogs

by plsnskanks (orphan_account)



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 10:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17506562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/plsnskanks
Summary: Hestia has a rather gloomy visitor and doesn't know what to do.





	On Death and Dogs

“Death has been at my door a little more than I would like as of late,” Hestia says over a steaming mug of tea. It billows out steam that fogs the window she sits next to. Little tendrils of ivy crawl up the walls, both inside and out. 

The room around them is cozy. Framed pictures of numerous gods, goddesses and heroes that had come to visit her over the millennia hang on the walls. Potted plants hang from the ceiling, crowd her shelves along with odd knickknacks and old tomes and still more pictures. Several candles are lit and dance merrily. The seats they sat on were accompanied with an odd mix of cushions of varied colors and shapes and Persephone relaxed into them as she listens to her friend speak. The reason Hestia was in her own home talking to none other than Persephone was because, well.

Persephone, if she was one thing, was open. She was a bridge, a path, a way through and if there was something Hestia needed of late, it was that. She was also very, very close to death in that it came naturally to her through her… circumstances. She wasn’t anywhere near as flighty or adverse to the topic as some of the nature and life centered deities could be.

“He comes to me late in the night, always the night, to talk about his job,” Hestia says, resting her cheek glumly into the palm of her hand. Yes, Death had many names and titles and all that sordid pomp, but when they had first met he had said “Please, call me Death” and Hestia had never been one to run counter to other’s desires. 

That is also why night after night she lets him in with his hood up and his shoulders hunched with some sort of invisible weight. It is in her very nature to never leave anyone out to the cold and maybe that is why she is the place Death seems to have found his niche.

“What does he say?”

“He tells me it is too much of late, there is a little too much tragedy for death, can you imagine? I get he is still quite green at the job after a few thousand years, but still,” Hestia clasped both hands to her mug and felt the warmth between her palms and watched the vapor rise in swirls that clenched and unclenched and then dissipate into the air as she mulled on her thoughts.

“He starts to tell me about his day, he first tells me about the old mother he visited, told me about how she was ready to go, but how her son wasn’t. Talks about the sounds he made, the anguish, the grief. He tells me about the ones that pass gently in rooms full of loved ones, the ones that die fitfully alone in the cold. And every mix in between. Then he tells me about the young baby, it was this wee thing, only alive for an hour he said…,” Hestia trails off and she feels her eyes prickle and she doesn’t know who the tears are for. 

Death was curious in a way. He seemed to be long past the time of the great Greek Theatrics that even the Lord of the Underworld himself wasn’t over. When he told his story he told it plainly. In a flat monotone that betrayed no emotions. He would come every night and tell those stories, he would stand, he would thank her, and then he would leave and when he walked out the door the darkness of the night seemed to greet him and when he left a veil of sorrow seemed to lay across Hestia’s home. The morning dew had come like teardrops on the grass.

She had always had the hearth lit before death started coming, but it wasn’t until he started coming that the hearth began to feel vital to her in a way it had never been. It was on the nights he came and went that she huddled closer to the fire and felt it thaw out the deep-set cold that had creeped into her while they had their chat. She struggled with the feeling that her talks with Death weren’t doing much but rerouting an unceasing tide instead of easing it.

“Why you? Have you ever asked him why he comes to you?” Persephone asked as she slid her hands across the table to intertwine her fingers in Hestia’s. Hestia hadn’t realized she had been staring out the window without speaking for quite a while.

“I’ve never asked him much of anything, aside from the stories he tells, neither of us speak much,” Hestia says. “When he comes I say ‘welcome’, when he leaves, he says thank you and I say goodbye.”

“Why do you let him in if it bothers you so much?”

Hestia thinks on that for a long moment.

“It comes with my job and my nature, I am the goddess of the home, and every night, the weariest traveler in the world shows up on my doorstep. How could I turn him away?”

“Would it make you feel any better if I sat through the night with you and met him?” Persephone asks.

Hestia looks at her in stunned disbelief, “Meet him? Have you not been listening to what I have been saying? Why would you ever want to do that?”

“It would probably make you feel better and I like meeting new people,” Persephone says, finishing the sentence with a contented smile.

Hestia glances at the window where weak light is streaming in. She really does not want another long night alone with Death, no. She looks at Persephone with her long hair falling in tresses and spread out all around her on the seat and cushions and peace radiating out from her expression. Persephone was like light itself in a way, persistent yet soft.

“I feel like he would enjoy meeting you for some reason,” Hestia said as she squinted at her friend.

“Well, let’s find out!” Persephone said, clasping her hands together and looking eager. The other gods and goddesses had often whispered about how Persephone was the strange one of their kind. The odd one out, the black sheep. Hestia could see why, but at the same time, she felt it wasn’t a bad thing. Far from it.

They spend the rest of their fading daylight together and some of the evening. Hestia lights her fire and gets Persephone a cup of tea and keeps the kettle simmering for Death as she always poured him a cup as well when he came about.

Close to midnight a soft knock comes on the door and Hestia gets up to open it. Death steps inside with a soft, “Thank you.”

He finds his usual spot occupied by Persephone so for a moment Death stands awkwardly before Hestia bustles over again with his mug in hand and gestures to her spot. Death is seated and Hestia finds herself next to Persephone. She slides Death’s mug across the table to him where he does what he usually does, holds it.

Night after night, he holds the mug from time of arrival to time of departure. It never once moves from its spot on the table and by the time she collects it up again the tea is always cold, regardless of whether Death stays five minutes or five hours.

Persephone looks at him with her gentle kind eyes and smiles softly. She turns over Death’s own hand with hers and taps it. A seed appears in his hand, sprouts, grows with roots that spread in gentle deltas crawling and splitting and weaving their way across his palm as the stalk of the plant grows taller and taller until a bud appears. It swells and swells and little white petals appear one at a time and then many as the bud keeps swelling and then finally bursts into a daisy.

Persephone’s hands leave Death’s and he sits there and as he does the daisy starts to shrivel and wither and crumble and at the very end of it, Death is left with a handful of dry, dead bits which he closes his fists around. He holds them a moment. When he reaches across the table towards Persephone, Hestia is surprised to see the small tremor in his hand. He opens his fist into Persphone’s waiting palm and out fall the crumble of dead plant.

This time, several sprouts of daisies arise in Persephone’s hand before she closes it.

“So, how was your day?” Persephone asks to break the gathering silence in the room. 

Death starts in his monotone to talk of others.

“I understand how their day was, pretty bad, but how was yours?” Persephone insists. “We also saw those people down in the underworld, but when you ask me about my day, I say things like ‘Well today I saw a dog and that made me happy’ or ‘Hades gave me pomegranate juice for breakfast, that guy’” Persephone says with a mimed nudge and a wink.

Death is quiet a long moment. So long Hestia thinks he is angry or upset he was interrupted.

After the long pause, in a quiet, thoughtful voice, Death says, “I like dogs.”

“Oh really? What is your favorite kind? I like the little wiener ones that waddle when they walk,” Persephone gushes.

“Err, I like the black and tan ones with the smushed face,” Death says and then draws a little swirl in the air, “and the curly tail.”

“Pugs!” Persephone says bouncing up and down, “Oh, I love those ones too!”

“They die awfully fast though,” Death says. “We have boatloads of them cross the Styx.”

“Oh but you love them while they are here and they are just the best,” Persephone barrels on.

“Hmm yes…” Death says and then is quiet a long moment again. Hestia does not think any oracle on whatever high mountain could have prepared her for the sentence next to come out of Death’s mouth.

“Perhaps I should get a dog.”

Persephone squeals and reaches out to clasp Death’s hands.

“You should, you should. I have one or three. Not sure how the math works out on that one but, I have a dogs and it is great.”

They talk long into the night about the best things about dogs, how to train them, how to keep them from chewing Death’s robes.

By the time Death is rising to go, Persephone is falling off his robes talking about dogs and how good they are at fetching and how she still hasn’t even gotten Hades to fetch.

Death thanks them and in the shifting shadows under that hood Hestia is sure she catches the ghost of a smile as he turns and goes and the door shuts and she is left with the feeling that for once all the light has remained within her house.

“Persephone, how in the gods names did you do that?” Hestia says staring at her friend dumbfounded.

Persephone shrugs, “Well you know, I make friends with anyone and he seemed very sweet just stuck in a funk.”

“Stuck in a funk,” Hestia says faintly. Endless nights of doom and gloom and a deep introspective look at the ephemeralness of human life and all she had to do to get off that topic and have a suitable guest was talk about dogs.

Persephone flicks her hair over her shoulder and smiles at her friend warmly, “Tell him he is welcome to come visit me if you ever get tired of having a nightly guest.”

Hestia takes her up on that offer, to give herself a few nights of respite for the first time in… she can’t even fathom how long. Death only occasionally reappears on her doorstep, this time with abundant photos of his new dog, one of which goes up on Hestia’s wall. He finds himself spending his nights with other gods and goddesses as Persephone introduces him and helps him get around to bonding with other immortals over various niche interests.

As time goes on, Death treads the earth with notably more spring in his step.


End file.
